U.S. will continue to deport Haitians

sun-sentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/local/sfl-flbtps0305sbmar05,0,4381943.story
South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
U.S. will continue to deport Haitians
Obama administration doesn't push to alter the deportation policy

By Luis F. Perez

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

March 5, 2009

Old request. New administration. Same answer.

Days after President Barack Obama's inauguration, advocates wrote to him and the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, asking that they stop deporting undocumented Haitians and allow those already here to stay legally.

The answer arrived Tuesday: No, for now.

"At this time, DHS intends to continue to coordinate the removal of Haitian nationals to Haiti," wrote Susan Cullen, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of Policy and Planning.

While the first official response from the new administration disappointed immigrant advocates, they still hope Obama will alter course. They pledge to keep pushing him and his appointees.

To that end, members of the South Florida Congressional delegation plan to meet with DHS officials Tuesday to continue an "education process," one aide said.

"We obviously have seen that this issue has not moved forward," said Lale Mamaux, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar.

Hastings and U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, have had recent talks with Obama and his top officials about the issue, aides said.

"They're bright people. They're fair people," said Randy McGrorty, chief executive officer of Catholic Charities Legal Services in Miami. "I remain optimistic the policy will change once they understand the need for change."

Said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigration Advocacy Center: "We were advised that the intent was not to deny our request. It's still under consideration. But time is of the essence."

In her letter, Cullen said since 2004 the U.S. has given $400 million to Haiti in assistance, including disaster relief. But she didn't explain the decision to continue deportations.

Advocates and congressional leaders have been asking the government to grant Haitians protected status for years. Those calls increased after four tropical storms ravaged the island nation last summer.

In September, ICE halted deportations to Haiti, raising advocates' expectations. But the agency resumed them in early December. Since then, many in the Haitian community have turned their attention to swaying Obama.

Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, which advocates for tighter immigration controls, said advocates should set benchmarks for when Haitians granted protected status would go back. In other cases, the designation has been extended for years.

"I think the Haitians are victims of the people who have abused TPS," Beck said.

Staff Writer Georgia East contributed to this report.

Luis F. Perez can be reached at lfperez@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4553.

Copyright © 2009, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Death toll climbs to 75 in Haiti school collapse

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer Jonathan M. Katz, Associated Press Writer 25 mins ago

School Student Tragedy in HaitiPETIONVILLE, Haiti – Rescuers digging through a collapsed school in Haiti pulled more bodies from sandwiched slabs of concrete, raising the death toll to 75 on Saturday as crews continued searching for survivors.

President Rene Preval said poor construction, including a lack of steel reinforcement, was to blame for Friday's collapse of the concrete College La Promesse in Petionville. Roughly 500 children and teenagers typically crowded into the three-story building.

Preval told The Associated Press that structures throughout Haiti are at similar risk because of poor construction and a lack of government oversight.

"It's not just schools, it's where people live, it's churches," he said at the site of the collapse as crews picked through the wreckage in search of more victims.

Doctors Without Borders was treating more than 80 people, many with serious injuries, said Francois Servranckx, a spokesman for the aid group.

photos Haiti Student School TragedyPetionville Mayor Claire Lydie Parent said at least 17 students were found crushed in a single classroom on Saturday but the report was denied by a doctor and firefighter at the scene.

"There are a lot of rumors, you know," said Cap Haitien Fire Chief Ardouin Zephirin, who was brought in from Haiti's second-largest city to help with the disaster on the outskirts of the capital.

Preval said a previous mayor of Petionville had tried to halt the expansion of La Promesse over safety concerns but the effort faltered when a new mayor came into power in the hillside Port-au-Prince suburb.

"We have got to have a consistent policy that when one administration leaves office the next continues its work," the president told AP. "The next time the mayor speaks and the authorities speak, people will listen."

International aid was trickling in.

Nearly 40 search-and-rescue officials from Fairfax, Virginia, were expected to arrive with dogs by Saturday afternoon, said Alexandre Deprez, acting director of the local U.S. Agency for International Development.

"I see a dramatic turnabout in the situation once they're here," he said. "We've done everything we've possibly can practically from the first hour."

The Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, was sending two helicopters to help, Dominican Health Minister Bautista Rojas said.

France also sent a team of 15 firefighters and doctors with two rescue dogs. A French civil protection official, Commandant Patrick Vailli, said Saturday that the workers spotted five people believed to be alive in the school's two basements and recovered two bodies.

Haitian Police commissioner Francene Moreau said the minister who runs the church-operated school could face criminal charges. Efforts to reach the preacher were not successful.

Thousands looked on from beside the school and across the valley, cheering each time a live student was extricated from the debris. One student who emerged and was lifted on a stretcher cried and made the sign of the cross over and over.

Thousands of Haitian menial laborers live in collapse-prone hillside slums around the capital to be near the mansions of the foreign diplomats, U.N. staff and wealthy elite for whom they work.

Parents said they toiled endlessly throughout the year to afford the school's $1,500 tuition in hopes of empowering their children to someday escape poverty.

Haiti, the poorest and most politically tumultuous country in the Western Hemisphere, has been struggling to recover this year from riots over rising food prices and a string of hurricanes and tropical storms that killed nearly 800 people.

U.N. peacekeepers were sent to Haiti following the bloody ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 and have improved security by fighting gangs and training local police.

___

Associated Press writer Nicole Chavranski contributed to this report from Paris.

Matt Damon and Wyclef Jean Unite to Fight Poverty

The African Children's Choir.
Photo: Jeff Chiu/AP Photo
By Dorinda Elliott
Talk about the power of travel and celebrity. At the third fundraiser for OneXOne, in San Francisco last night, actor Matt Damon, hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean, rock star Carlos Santana, singer Josh Groban, director David Arquette and the African Children's Choir came together to raise money to fight poverty and improve the lives of children in the U.S. and around the world. The key beneficiaries: Damon's H2O Africa, which funds water projects in Africa; Water Partners, with water projects around the world; Yele Haiti, which supports development in Haiti; and Feeding America, which runs food programs across the U.S.
What's the travel connection? Damon's interest in water issues stems from a trip he took two years ago to southern Africa, where he saw the opportunities that water wells can offer people. He has also become involved in fighting poverty in Haiti. Damon traveled there with Wyclef Jean after Hurricane Ike hit, and helped distribute food. What Damon saw in Haiti--the city of Gonaive submerged in water, people desperate for food, "the smell of death," "was something I have never, ever seen before," Damon said. "Clef looked at me and said 'this is not human. No one should have to live like this.'"
After the trip, Damon traveled to the Clinton Global Initiative meetings in New York, where he joined a multi-faceted commitment to support projects in Haiti that will provide food for 20,000 families for a year, supply 36,000 farmers with seeds, provide five million liters of clean water, rebuild thousands of homes, support education for 600,000 students, rebuild two bridges that were destroyed, and rebuild 12 schools. "This is fantastic," Damon says, "but what we need down there is a Marshall Plan." Jean's Yele Haiti foundation is developing plans to support small businesses, and he wants to attract investment for tourism. "Thats what I'm talkin' about," says Jean, decked out in a black suit, crisp white shirt and purple tie. "We dont want charity--we want tourism."
The fundraiser auction got heated, with several guests bidding against themselves. "This must be a new San Francisco tradition, bidding against yourself," Damon quipped. "My compliments on the selection of the wine tonight." The auctioneers sold three trips to visit Damon on the set of his next movie, The Human Factor, about Nelson Mandela, which will directed by Clint Eastwood and filmed in South Africa, for $200,000 each. "If Eastwood doesn't like the idea of having a lot of people around the set," Damon said, "I guess my trailer's going to be pretty crowded with a lot of people playing video games."